Pictures in the Dark
by Lossenrhos
Summary: Regulus Black enters his brother's room for the first time in years.


Regulus was surprised how simple it was to break with a tradition of seven years standing. Frighteningly simple. All it took was this: when he walked up the stairs after his meeting instead of turning left to his room he turned right. It wasn't even a conscious decision. His feet seemed to make the choice for him, carrying him along that other path of their own accord. It wasn't until he he reached the door that Regulus even paused. Seven years. Seven years Slytherin and Hogwarts had taught him just how vast the distance was between a true wizard and a traitor. An insurmountable difference, for all Sirius' room was no more than five paces distant from his own. A distance he'd sworn never to cross.

So what was he doing here now?

Perhaps it was better not to think, better not to question his actions. Wasn't that what Rodolphus had said? Don't stop to ask questions, not even of yourself. Just do you're told. Open the door. Take a few steps forward. Now shut it behind you. That's right.

The room smelt musty. All rotting air and darkness. Regulus liked the dark. It felt like the folds of a cloak around him, as warm as wool, as light as silk, as protective as chain mail. In a dark room there was nothing to think about. There were no questions, no worries, no expectations, only Regulus and the dark. And then, growing out of the dark, a bedpost, a chair lying on its side, a chest of drawers.

And a pair of eyes, glittering.

Regulus blinked. He couldn't have seen that. It was a trick of the light, some freak of accustoming eyes. But when he looked again the eyes were still there. Not just the two of them either but many, a silent blinking swarm watching him lining the walls, watching him. As Regulus stepped forwards, staring in amazement around him, he realised that the walls were actually moving, seeming to flicker around him. Could it be bats? he wondered. But the thought seemed bizarre. His mother may have ordered this room to be left as it was but that wouldn't extend to ignoring the prescencce of a flock of vermin in the house. 

"Lumos," he whispered, holding up his wand up above his head close to the wall to investigate.

For a moment he blinked stupidly as his brother's face grinned back at him. Immobile with shock, Regulus watched as Sirius raised a tankard of butterbeer, took a swig, wiped his mouth, and grinned. It was as though someone had cut a whole through the wall to show Regulus his brother, as he was. But no. This wasn't the present day Sirius. He looked too young. It was a photograph, he realised. Sirius had stuck up a photograph of himself drinking butterbeer at the Three Broomsticks on the wall. That was what the eyes were. Photographs. As he moved his wand he saw now that there were hundreds of them stuck to the wall, moving faces, flashing teeth.

Heart still beating uncomfortably fast, Regulus looked again at the picture of Sirius. He looked young, thirteen, perhaps, fourteen. Younger than Regulus was now. The fresh unmarked skin of his face, the boyishness of his grin, gave Regulus an unnerving impression of vulnerability. Youth and freshness died young, these days. Casualties of the cause. Why, the boy Bella had killed had looked a little like this. Strange, that Regulus hadn't noticed the resemblance at the time. But then, Regulus hadn't been in a fit state to notice much, then.

His _screams. _

Regulus took a sharp step away, jerking his head to shake off the memory. The light at the end of his wand momentarily flared brighter, reflecting off the photograph, momentarily eclipsing Sirius' face. Regulus tried to control his trembling, keep his wand still, stop his magic flowing out of control. Still he could see that photograph out of the corner of his eye.

Stupid grinning child. He shouldn't have been smiling. He'd already got himself sorted into Gryffindor, hadn't he? Consorted with a half-blood, a blood traitor, Merlin knew what else. He didn't deserve to look happy. He knew full well that, as he laughed, their mother's heart was breaking. What difference did it make if the dead boy looked like him? Again, Sirius raised his tankard, in what seemed an ironic salute.

_You are good at finding excuses for yourself, aren't you, Reggo? _

Unable to bear it Regulus turned away, other pictures leaping to life as he moved his wand…. Sirius, with the Potter boy…. Andromeda and a baby (Had Andi really had a child? No one had ever told Regulus.) … Pyramids rising up out of the sand "Come to Egypt"… a brown haired boy reading a book … a vapid looking girl modeling a purple ball gown. Some of these pictures seemed chosen at random, pasted all over the walls with the others in a sloppy overlapping pattern. It was as if Sirius had taken a vow not to leave a single scrap of wall space free, Regulus thought. He had deliberately blotted out the tasteful wallpaper their mother has picked out and, instead, imposed his own patterns on the room… A vulgar pattern, erratic, senseless.

Reguls stared at the walls. There were pictures cut from magazines of Quidditch stars, of mountain views, of girls modeling knitwear. There were more photographs. Four boys lounging by Hogwarts Lake, a scowling red headed girl tipping a plate of spaghetti over the head of the Potter boy, Uncle Alphard, laughing. Regulus, scowling at the camera. Here, Regulus held his wand still, halted by the sight of his own face. Sirius had kept a picture of him?  
_  
"You know, Regulus, you don't have to do this, you know."_

"I've nothing to say to you, traitor."

Sirius flushed, his eyes glittering, but he didn't break his grip on his brother's arm.

"If you join them, you'll end up a murderer like them. You don't want that."

"I'm not a coward," Regulus tossed his head. "I'd count it an honour to fight for our beliefs."

Sirius looked at him in disbelief. "You really think this is about courage? About honour? You really think that lot give a damn about those things?" A pause. "Or is it just that that's what you want to think?"

Regulus had tried to stare him down. "I'm only doing what's right, Sirius."

Sirius' eyes flashed with a different emotion this time and when he spoke in a voice that was almost soft. "God. They've really got you brainwashed, haven't they?" 

"You're wrong." Regulus said flatly. "I'm not brainwashed. I know what I'm doing."

The room didn't answer. Somehow, he'd hoped it would.

"I didn't want to join." Regulus said. "I didn't want to fight. But someone had to. Someone had to make up for what you did to Mother. Someone had to put things right."

_  
The girl's eyes had jumped from Regulus's face, to Rabastan's wand, to the corridor beyond, with the helpless fear of an animal caught in a trap._

"Give me back my wand." she squeaked.

"I don't feel like it, do you, boys?" Rabastan's eyes shone, a dark joy blazing in the deep.

Regulus laughed with the rest. Someone hissed a spell and the girl gasped in pain, clutching her stomach. More laughter.

"Nice one, Severus. What was it?"

Smirking, Severus opened his mouth to explain but he never finished his sentence. His nose had suddenly turned to wax, bubbling in his face, moving, growing longer. In the space of a few seconds it had grown so big he couldn't support it's weight. Clutching at his face he fell to his knees.

"Careful Snivellus!" Laughter coming from the empty air around them. "Ever heard the story of Pinocchio?"

"Who's there?" Rabastan had gone pale, glancing around him. "Show yourself!"

"It's Puh-Potter!" Snape choked out with difficulty, as his nose reached his knees.

There was more laughter from behind a tapestry, and a bright jet of light flashed accross the corridor. Parkinson rose into the air, pirouetting like a ballet dancer. Rabastan, who had somehow cut his lip, turned to flee. A hand caught Regulus as he turned to follow. Sirius appeared, apparently out of thin air, James Potter beside him. Two more boys crawled out from behind a tapestry.

"Look at this!" One of them gave Severus a kick. "It's old Snivellus."

Potter grinned, turned, but Sirius didn't move. His eyes were boring furiously into Regulus'.

"What were you doing, picking on that first year?"

Regulus felt a pang of guilt, then, but he forced himself to smile, aping the easy confidence of his comrades. "Aww, Sirius, it was only a mudblood."

A sharp blow across the face sent Regulus sprawling.

"You little git!" Sirius yelled.

"Ow! I'll tell mother!" Regulus wiped blood from his mouth. His lip ached.

"I'll tell mother." Sirius mimicked. "Listen to you. You're a real hero, aren't you?" 

"But I never wanted to be a hero, Sirius." Regulus replied, to the darkness of his brother's room. "That was you. I wanted a quiet life, with things staying the way they always were. You and me, playing Merlin and the Mudbloods, Andi reading us stories, and Mother saying we were her best boys, her brightest stars, kings among men. You were the one that wanted to change everything, destroy everything, make yourself special. Why did you have to fight? None of this would have happened if you hadn't fought."

Regulus felt a tightness rising in his throat, the numbness that frozen him ever since his Initiation suddenly breaking, like a dam within him. Pictures burst up into his mind as if of their own accord, images crackling like fire before his eyes, explosive, terrifying. The wizard with a face like a snake, saying Regulus was his now. Bella with the muggle boy at her feet. The greedy look in his companion's eyes as it she went for the kill. And the screams. The _screams. _

"It's not fair." he chocked. "It's not fair. This is _all your fault. _"

The faces looked back at him, mockingly calm, safe in their glossy, frozen worlds. Hundreds of empty smiles, hundreds of eyes staring past Regulus into an endless past.

There were hot tears on his face, and pins and needles in his arms, as he wrenched the pictures from the wall. Sirius' Sticking Charm was strong, but Regulus was glad of the struggle, glad of the tingling pain caused by ripped spells sending shocks down his arms. Glad to fight, to destroy, to pull down all Sirius' creation from the walls of his mother's home.

And there they were all of them, in a pile at his feet. All those faces, all those silent smiles, mouths lipping laughter in the dark. Sirius' pathetic attempt to escape from the reality Grimmauld Place, by making another world out of wallpaper.

"Incendio." As he spoke the words Regulus felt a rush of power. The destruction of it all was beautiful, the flames spreading over the paper like lightening, unbearably bright in the darkness, orange, purple, red.

Somehow, though, the ache in his throat didn't fade.

Fourteen year old Sirius was still grinning even as the flames began to curl at his edges. Regulus' little bonfire couldn't hurt him, not while he had his friends and his camera and his tankard of Best Butterbeer. He looked at Regulus, and Regulus knew that his grin wasn't directed at him, he wasn't laughing at him, he'd quite forgotten his brother. The brother he'd left behind with only the mother he'd wounded for company.

_  
"You won't shame me, Regulus? You won't shame me like him?" Fingernail's biting into Regulus' wrists, eyes searching his._

"I won't, mother. I promise. I'll never let you down."

A hard smile, and the fingers released him, suddenly. "That's just what he said. And he was worth ten of you, my most beautiful, my cleverest boy. My champion. No. If they can ruin him, they'll ruin you."

"She doesn't mean it." his father had said feebly, when she had left. "She loves you, boy. She's upset, that's all. We're all upset."

But Regulus had known the truth, even before his mother had said it. His mother loved Sirius best, and nothing Regulus could do would make up for the hurt Sirius had caused her.  


Sirius had a coronet of flames now creeping around the oval of his face, but he was still smiling. Soon he would be consumed. Gone. The moment dead forever. _No._

Regulus felt a lurch of panic and he stumbled forwards, kicking out the flames. The smell of burnt chemicals washed over him, as he bent to pick up the photograph from the smoking remains of the fire. Crouching in the blistering ashes he held the photo up before his eyes, ashes curling between his burnt fingers. The surface of the photograph was burnt, black, lumpy. Only Sirius' smile remained visible, teeth flashing ridiculously in the blackened remains. An old tune that had been popular in Regulus' fourth year floated into his mind _Can't get me down, can't make me cry, can't make me stop smiiiiling _. Sirius had sung it at the top of his voice all summer, his wireless blaring, as his mother screeched at him from the stairs. He'd thought at the time how much that song suited Sirius. Sirius, the bright, the reckless, the indefatigable, who'd laughed when Regulus told him he hated him, who'd slapped Bella right back when she'd pinched him, Sirius, who'd never let anyone stop him smiling.

In a way, his mother was right. Sirius was a traitor, but more magnificent as a traitor than Regulus had ever been as a dutiful son._ Worth ten of you._ Perhaps. Once Sirius had chosen his course, he'd strode right along it, without a glance backwards. Not like Regulus, who squirmed and stumbled and made excuses. What would Sirius have done when confronted with that slow cold smile, those inhuman blood coloured eyes? Pulled a prank? Told a joke?

_"Here, Your Lordship, pull my finger. Whoops, gotcha!"_

Regulus snorted. No. If he had been a Death Eater, he would have stuck by the Dark Lord the way he stuck by that four eyed Potter boy. He wouldn't be desperately, hopelessly scrabbling to find a way out.

He closed his eyes. _I didn't think that. _

_You did, _Sirius's voice spoke in his mind, gleefully. _You did. _

It was said now. He had to face it the truth. He couldn't become the sort of man to go around murdering muggles in their beds or torturing Pureblood wizards that didn't agree with his Master. He couldn't, he didn't even _want_, to be like them. All he wanted was to make things back to the way they had been, in the old days, when Purebloods were treated with proper respect and his mother was happy. But for all his talk, Regulus realised, the Dark Lord didn't want truly that. He just wanted to cause chaos, to destroy, to kill everything, because he wanted to be more than everything. He couldn't serve that man. But what could he do? Become a spy? For _them_? Regulus was not a blood traitor. He wasn't about to go over to his brother's side, help them create a world where Muggle-borns were allowed to spoil all the old traditions, break his mother's heart once and for all. But then, what could he do? Die for a man he knew to be evil? Die for a cause he didn't believe him? There was little hope of living honourably now. So - was there another way to die?

Perhaps.

Regulus caught his breath. A plan, almost too daring to be dreamed of, was beginning to creep across his mind, as stealthily as newly lit flames over fuel. If it was going to die why not try and destroy something evil in the process? What if, what if he managed to kill his Master? Not to help the Ministry and that wretched Order, but to stop him the evil that he saw, and felt helpless under.

It was a true, Slytherin plan, worthy of any Black, to gain his master's trust and slip a knife into his back. And there must be a way. No man was truly immortal, even with all the magic in the world behind him. True it was a fantastic idea but – if he was clever, if he was cautious, if he did his homework – it might work. And it would be glorious, far more glorious than anything Sirius or his cousins had ever done. He would be remembered forever, and the Black family name spoken with reverence once more.

He looked down at the blackened paper, that broad grin flashing like a conspirator in the darkness, and he felt himself smile in return. He would show them. He would show all of them the true way to be a Black. _"Can't get me down, can't make me cry, can't make me stop smiiiling."_ Regulus sung under his breath as he pocketed the picture and, quietly, made to leave the room. He had a serious feat of Occlumency to prepare.


End file.
